Chapter 22
Lisa had butterflies every day about the show at the Aladdin room. She was afraid that she would not do well in the show. She had been practicing at least a couple of hours every night and the parts that John got to see said there shouldn't be any soft man parts anywhere in the audience. While John was constantly mesmerized by Lisa's incredible poise, grace and beauty, Lisa only saw her flaws. As a result, she constantly worked to improve all of her perceived imperfections.
She was worried her skin would not be lustrous enough or polished and slick enough for the veils to slide the way she wants them. So each night John helped her rub a combination of moisturizers and oils into her skin. She had also been taking tanning sessions every day since she applied for the job, so that her skin will have a nice golden hue all over. Her normal four hour body sculpting sessions in the gym had moved up to five and sometimes even six hours.
Every morning she would inspect herself for a blemish in her skin or an ounce of fat in the wrong place, but all John ever saw was perfection. All the effort made Lisa even more stunning than she already was and that's saying something. With her golden skin polished, glistening, and oh so silky soft, stretched over her lithe, muscle toned body, she was a dazzling dream personified. While John found her to be perfect, every day she found a flaw that she needed to worked on.
Lisa couldn't believe how her life had changed since she met John. She had worked all her life trying to get a starring role as a featured dancer. Growing up, her entire life revolved around ballet or modern dance lessons and in an early age she had been given the taste of being a featured dancer. However, when she blossomed all of that seemed to go away. At dance auditions she was either too short, her breasts were too large, and there were thousands of other excuses for not getting the role.
In order to earn a living she started nude modeling and stripping. All of the flaws that kept her from being a lead dancer were suddenly an asset in this world. However, she still hung on to her dream of one day being a featured dancer. Now thanks to John she was getting her chance. John wasn't just a chance for a featured dancer job, he was also her chance at love. She found more and more that she craved the role of John's lover more than a featured dancer.
John helped her every night with her dance of the seven veils. She had done extensive research and found that the dance was really subject to interpretation. There was no choreographed dance. There were the Hollywood versions, the stripper versions and even a biblical version, but none was the official dance of the seven veils. So Lisa took the most erotic and sensual versions making up her own dance.
As John helped her refine her dance, they turned the dance into an elegant yet seductive masterpiece. There were elements of ballet combined with several sensuous stripper moves. It was indeed a dance like no other and only someone like Lisa could put all this together. Someone that was trained in classical ballet, schooled in modern dance and had grown up as a stripper, could put this dance together. As he saw her creating this dancing masterpiece, he wondered what the reaction of the gangsters would be. He worried that given the chance the ruling Council would pervert her dance into something sinister.
John hadn't let Lisa know anything about the snuff films, the tissue samples or the ledger information that he was finding. He wanted her to be happy and he wanted to see nothing but joy and ecstasy on her face, so he hid all of his information from her.
John always had a healthy dose of skepticism and animus when it came to the ruling Council, but his findings in the sewer system was turning him into a full-blown cynic. The "Sewer Rats" documented another snuff film and in addition to their photographic evidence, they gathered blood and tissue samples as well. So far they had evidence of the tortured death of a human being, but they knew this was the tip of the iceberg. Somehow, they needed to find evidence of how high this went and if this went all the way to the ruling Council. So far the only people they tied directly to the crimes were the two people that actually did the torturing and a cameraman.
John met with his fellow engineering managers to try and find how to stop this inhuman practice. The pervasive attitude among the managers thought there was maybe one other individual that helped in coordinating the smuggling of the victims. So the consensus among the managers was there were four criminals involved and that needed to be brought to justice.
John argued there was no way something like this could happen on Venus without the ruling Council's knowledge and approval. However, most of the other managers resisted his notion and their motivation was obvious. For an engineer this was a very lucrative gig and everybody had put their lives on hold for large amounts of money they received for being here. No one wanted to give all that up and no one wanted to think that they had been a fool to trust a bunch of gangsters.
However, there was one other motivating factor, fear. Most of the engineers were in good shape, but none could stand up to the security force. A few had served in the Armed Forces and had some combat experience. However, they had no weapons and nobody was skilled in hand and combat. So if the ruling Council was involved in all their lives were in danger, including those families that had come with the engineers.
The "Sewer Rats" had already shown that they were in this fight and they would do whatever was required. They're the ones who had found and documented the only evidence that they had and he knew they would do more if he ask. So he asked them to keep a close eye on his precious Lisa. He wanted to know if she was ever in any potential danger and if so he needed to know immediately.
John understood the fear and reticence among all the other engineering managers. They had people that they loved that would be put in danger if they did anything and he understood that. However, he didn't understand the people that feared the loss of a paycheck more than what was moral and right.
Meanwhile, John contacted the Brewster Texas County Sheriff to see the results of their forensic analysis. The Sheriff had been to whom they had sent the flash drive and tissue samples. He had in turn sent them on to the FBI crime lab. John hoped very soon they would have a complete analysis of this information and determine what it entailed. The information on the flash drives and specific banking information had been traced by the FBI to a corporation called Star Entertainment.
Star Entertainment seemed to be a nebulous holding company. However, the FBI had uncovered one very interesting, but not conclusive fact. Of all the members on their board of directors, all also had ties to Venus Ascending. The books contained the purchase of raw materials, transport and production costs. These costs were associated with the creation of some kind of product. Then there were marketing, distribution and sales of the item, but there was no definitive description of what the item was. Therefore, the accounting analysis continued.
As far as the tissue samples went, they were so far a dead end. They catalogued all the tissue and the DNA, but had found no matches in their database. Unfortunately, they did not have access to many of the international databases, including the DNA database that Venus Ascending held. So they had the information, but no one to link it too.
Feedback from the FBI requested the identity of the informant that had given John the accounting information and tissue samples. John had no idea who that person was and had no idea how to find them. They had just found the information stashed in the sewer system. The "Sewer Rats" were his counter surveillance unit and his secret weapon. They could reach any portion of Venus without anyone being aware that they were there. So he wanted to see if they could conduct surveillance on members of the accounting team and see if any of them was the possible informant.
John worked with the IT team to set up encrypted emails and ghost surfing capabilities to try to hide his investigation from the ruling Council and their security. Using his encrypted emails he let the FBI know what they had found so far and what he suspected. Unlike his fellow engineering managers John felt like the entire snuff film operation was being run from the very top. This had all the organization of any other cost center in the entertainment arena. John felt this couldn't only be just the people they had seen so far.
John knew he was out of his league and asked the FBI for suggestions on where to look and what evidence they needed. He also asked them how they saw this ending, because with no legal or judicial system on Venus, how could the criminals be brought to justice? They told him they had already conceived a task force and were working on all of those various issues. In the meantime, they just wanted him to continue his surveillance.
The only person John cared about was Lisa and she was already neck deep in this. John's only fear was that something would happen to Lisa. He didn't know what he could do, but he was prepared to fight the death to save the woman he loved.
So far the one saving grace was that all the criminal behavior was still hidden behind closed doors. The council didn't want anything out in the open for the world's scrutiny. John figured this paranoia was his only saving grace. Lisa's show and dancing was all in public, so he felt as if she was safe. As long as the consortium worried about public opinion, John felt like Lisa could go on with her dream dance.
